Monday, 14 March 2011

Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Relief - How you can help

The tragic and frightening events unfolding in Japan will be familiar to you all, so I won't recount them here, except to urge you to view this piece by ABC News showing in stark detail the extent of the devastation so far.

What I do want to tell you is that Japan has asked for outside help, and for a country as proud as that to do so (they were forced to accept foreign assistance after the Kobe earthquake in 1995 which virtually destroyed that city and killed 6,500 people), they must be in severe need right now - faced as they are by earthquake, tsunami, nuclear emergency and an erupting volcano.

I have a vested interest - I love the country; I have family and friends who live there (they're all okay if scared); and I have been to Japan three times out of the last four years - and am meant to be going again in three weeks' time.

But even if you're not directly affected in any way, please consider donating whatever you can using the Red Cross button below. The Red Cross is the agency recommended by the Japanese Embassy in the UK.

The picture at the top is of the Daibutsu at Kōtoku-in temple, Kamakura, immortalised by "The Buddha at Kamakura" by Rudyard Kipling (extract above), which I visited in 2008.

The Great Buddha wasn't built to stand in the open air, but the last building to house the statue was completely washed away in a tsunami over five hundred years earlier, in 1498.

Thankfully, the Buddha itself was somehow left undamaged by the merciless waves.